Confession: I have been drooling over pictures of resurrection gardens online for years now! I’ve always wanted to make one, but never seemed to have gotten around to it. Planting the grass seed and trying to predict when it would actually look nice felt overwhelming. Well, guess what? We finally did it, and I’m going to show you how easy it really is- plus, with this version, it looks nice instantly!
Supplies Needed To Make Your Own Resurrection Garden:
- Something large and shallow(ish) to plant it in. I used a plant saucer that I got at Lowe’s. It was a little over $5. I got a plastic one rather than terra cotta because I didn’t want it scratching up my table.
- A small terracotta pot for the “tomb,” or you can turn a plastic cup or a tin can sideways. The pot I got cost .77
- A flat rock, about the size of your tomb
- Dirt
- Small rocks
- Small plants (optional)
- Flowers in a pot- something with small, low flowers. I chose thrift. (optional)
- Sticks for making crosses
- Hot glue gun
- Moss
The kids are so excited to get started!
I found this section at Lowe’s with really affordable tiny plants- they were with the cacti, so I’m assuming they’re desert-y. I chose 3 to go in our garden. I tried to get a variety of textures, and pick out plants that looked like big plants shrunken down. You could also just dig up various small plants from your yard.
Mostly online, I’ve seen versions of these resurrection gardens where you plant your own wheat grass, and wait for it to grow in. I chose to use moss in our Resurrection garden, and here’s why:
- It looks great right away- no waiting. This means you could even build this on Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday.
- It will look good longer. If you use grass seed, once the grass gets really long, it starts looking weird, then you can cut the grass, but it won’t look natural and there will be clippings everywhere- you get the picture. I’m expecting this moss version to hold up through the entire 50 days of Easter if we keep it watered. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
- Moss actually looks like tiny grass, and the whole point of this is that it’s a miniature.
We found our own moss, and just pried it up out of the ground with our hands. The kids filled a bucket for me, and had a great time. 🙂
How To Make Your Resurrection Garden
Start by gathering your supplies, and setting your potted plants just about where you think you want them in your container. I put the flowers in the back, and staggered the little ones around. Make sure you leave room for where your tomb is going to be, and room to build the hill behind it.
Start filling around the plants with dirt. Keep filling until the dirt is just a little bit lower than the lip of your container.
Now, lay your small pot, cup, or can on its side. Put your large rock over to the side like it’s rolled away from your tomb. Start filling dirt around the back and sides to make a hill over the tomb.
Take small rocks and make a path leading up to your tome. I let Violet (age 4) do this completely on her own. 🙂
Start filling in with your moss, tucking it wherever it will fit.
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Go hunting for small, straight sticks, and hot glue them into cross shapes. You need 1 big one for the middle, and 2 smaller ones on each side. Stick them down into the dirt, and pack it in tightly around the bottom of them with your fingers. This will hold them up.
That’s it! Once all the moss is in place, your garden is instantly ready! No need to wait for sproutlings or anything. 🙂
We even had some of our Easter peg dolls drop by the garden. 🙂
I can’t even tell you how pleased the kids are! They keep staring at it, and petting it, and saying “I can’t believe how nice it looks, Mommy!” I am so glad that I practiced self restraint and let the kids do it rather than doing it for them to make it perfect… even when they put all the greenest moss in the back. 😉
This is not even a blog post I intended writing, but I had taken the kids to the park, the weather was beautiful, and I just thought to myself, “You know what? I should go to Lowe’s and get the stuff for a resurrection garden. The kids would love that!” So glad I listened to me. We really enjoyed this. 🙂
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beautiful lacy! i’m glad you listened to you, too!!!
I had thought about making this since I saw you posted it. On the way back from Mass yesterday on a whim I had my husband drive us to the Home Depot. I hadn’t carefully studied your post enough–but managed to get mostly what we needed. No moss for sale (the gentleman who helped us said he had another lady looking for some as well earlier) but my husband had a patch of moss in the lawn he was needing to dig up and it was perfect. (God Provides!) Wish I could send you a picture, it turned out cool. Made it for the prayer table of my parish religious education classes. (The same classes where we made the 55 dozen Resurrection Eggs…)
So happy to hear it worked out! We had also gone to Lowe’s on a whim. 🙂
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this! We ended up doing a Good Friday garden first then transformed it into a Resurrection Garden — https://pinoyroots.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/of-salubongs-and-gardens/ God bless you! Emy
So beautiful- what a great idea to transform it! I love all the little white flowers. 🙂
By the way – I’m obligated to tell you I nominated you for an award, but no pressure on your part. Just my way of saying thanks! 😉 Emy
https://pinoyroots.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/real-neat-blog-award/
I just love this Resurrection garden! It is really lovely and it looks very ‘doable’! thanks so much for sharing and for your creativity!